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She should have known there’d be a catch.

After all, when it came to second chances, there usually was. But somehow, Josie had managed to forget that. She’d road-tripped all night from Las Vegas, powered by Big Gulps and Twinkies and fueled by dreams of returning in triumph to Donovan’s Corner. Now that she’d seen what was waiting for her—what Tallulah had “rewarded” her with—she couldn’t believe she’d been so naïve.

Prompted by Tallulah, Josie had worked up the nerve to confront her past. She’d packed everything she owned in her beat-up Chevy convertible. She’d made her way through the twisty, mountainous roads that divided her old life from her new one. And for what?

For a tumbledown pile of an “estate”—a term she used very loosely—at the edge of a town she’d thought she’d left behind forever.

That’s what.

But this particular estate was hers, she reminded herself. Every last ramshackle inch of it. That made all the difference.
It was a good thing, too. According to her lawyer, Tallulah had thought she’d been doing Josie a favor by bringing her back to Donovan’s Corner. If only she’d known the truth. For Josie, having her big second chance plunked down here, of all places.... It was like a big cosmic joke. Fortunately, Josie was always up for a laugh.

Squinting through the springtime sunlight at the two-story shake-shingled house in front of her, she felt a surge of optimism. Despite the discouraging reality of peeling paint, crumbling stone chimneys, and overgrown weeds, she could make something of this place. She knew it.

The thought energized her. Or maybe that was just the Twinkies talking—she’d polished off the last of her stash upon rounding the circular gravel drive. Either way, it was time to get started. Through an unbelievable twist of fate, she finally had something to call her own—something bigger than a blow-dryer and more durable than a sequin-spangled G-string. Unreal as it seemed, she’d gotten a lucky break. She intended to make the most of it.

Pulling her duffel bag from her convertible’s duct-taped vinyl passenger seat, she palmed her keys and headed across the drive. Her platform wedgies crunched against the gravel. Her hair swung across her shoulders, bared in her requisite post-show outfit of terry cloth track pants and a strappy tank top.

If she’d been smart, she’d have dressed for the chill in the mountain air. But she’d been too eager to start her new life to bother with anything but hauling herself out of Vegas the minute the curtain fell on last night’s show. A part of her still didn’t quite believe this whole thing was real. She half expected to find the house key in her hand didn’t work at all.

Her gaze fell on the “Blue Moon” sign nailed to a porch post to her left. Josie smiled. It was a fitting name for the place. “Once in a blue moon” was about how often a girl like her made good. At least that’s what people in town might have said...had they known she was coming back.

“Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want any.”

The voice—a masculine one—came from someplace above her head. Startled, she glanced up.
A dark-haired man gazed steadily down at her from the porch roof, a hammer in one hand and a fistful of cedar shingles in the other. Clearly he’d been hired to do much-needed work on the place. Or to serve as eye candy for the newly arriving new owner: her. Either way, Josie relaxed.

Thank you, Welcome Wagon. Some old houses came with bats in the attic. Apparently, hers came with a resident hunk on the roof. One with dreamy blue eyes, whisker shadow, and muscles galore. Her opinion of the dilapidated estate went up a notch.